


Someone That You've Met Before

by tinsnip



Series: caged birds [3]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Lost - Freeform, M/M, Memory, Searching, Vignette, the flutter of wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-16
Updated: 2014-11-16
Packaged: 2018-02-25 13:00:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2622695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinsnip/pseuds/tinsnip
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The drugs are beginning to work. It's too late to stop them now. All around him, everything is changing, but he's never quick enough to see the shift.<br/>Slowly but surely, Pela Serot is coming apart.</p><p>This is an homage to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/users/Prevailing/pseuds/Queriana">Queriana's</a> wonderful <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1546973/chapters/3276851">'Inside Out'</a>, a story which imagines an Elim Garak who went into deep cover as a Bajoran tailor named Pela Serot. I highly recommend reading it. </p><p>Serot's family names and city were made up for this story, and may not correspond with what Queriana has in mind.</p><p>Many thanks for Queriana for permitting me to play in their sandbox!</p><p>The lyrics are from The Weepies' <a href="http://youtu.be/seeSH1wliB8">'Little Bird'</a>. The song can be purchased <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/hideaway/id383784956">here</a> as well as from your favourite music retailer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Someone That You've Met Before

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Prevailing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prevailing/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Inside Out](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1546973) by [Prevailing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prevailing/pseuds/Prevailing). 



_sometimes it's hard to tell the truth from a lie_  
 _nobody knows what's in the hold of your mind_  
 _we are all buildings, and people inside never know who'll walk through the door_  
 _is it someone that you've met before?_

* * *

It's happening again and again and again. Something moves in his mind, and he furrows his brow, stares at nothing as he waits for revelation—

—but there's nothing there.

It's like hearing the flutter of wings, but turning too late to see the bird ascending. All that's left is the knowledge that something was there, something alive and watching…

He's tried to bring the bird back. He's dimmed the lights, folded himself into meditation-seat, closed his eyes and looked within himself for the shadow in his pagh, the pattern of feathers.

There's never anything there.

He tries not to think too much about what that might mean.

Instead he lives his life, every day unfolding much like the one before. His day starts next to Julian, snoring softly, then moves through shower and breakfast, and from there to his shop, where his hands move carefully and with precision, trained by years of practice—

_Certainly years. At least ten. There's proof for ten._

—and then to lunch, and back to the shop, where customers weave in and out. He smiles at all of them, chats with most, catching up on gossip and news, admiring and insinuating and selling just the way Minta used to do, just how he'd learned to do when he'd been her graceless apprentice—

_If I ever was. If I've even met her. If she's even real, if any of that was real_ _…_

How did they do it to him? He wonders sometimes, staring into his tea, or at a bolt of fabric, unrolled and unmarked and waiting patiently for his knife. Did he study, like a child learning the sacred texts, repeating back: _I am Pela Serot. I live in Volens. My mother and father are called Pela Vrin and Pela Errith…_ Or did they not have patience for that? Did they patch the knowledge into him, slicing open his mind, stitching in the new pieces seamlessly, folding the others over and darting them shut so that they wouldn't be seen?

_Did they remake me?_

_Who was I before?_

_Am I still him?_

Sometimes he finds thoughts in his head that don't feel like his own. They slip behind his consciousness: quiet assessments, warnings, laughter. Sometimes he finds himself wincing as he leaves his quarters, bracing for brightness that isn't there. Sometimes he craves something he can't name, and his mouth fills with saliva, his stomach rumbles without possibility of satisfaction. His days are the same, but his mind is changing; behind him, the flutter of wings, and when he turns to look, his life is patterned differently and the shape of it is wrong…

_Are you in there, other me?_

Nothing but silence. Always silence. But something is alive and watching.

_And where will I go, when you come back?_

There are secrets in his mind that he can't touch, locked away behind dark doors. He hadn't even known they were there until Julian had pried them open. Now they loom quietly in the corners of his mind, casting shadows. He can't crack them wider, can't see what's inside. Only Julian's drugs can do that. One vial a day, yellow and bright, as cheerful as his lover's smile, illuminating all the dark corners until nothing can hide—

_Some corners are better left dark. Some doors are better left shut._

Prophets, it doesn't matter, does it? Julian's started things now, and it's too late to stop… and somewhere within himself he knows: this is how it has to be. Julian's only putting things back the way they ought to be, after all. He doesn't have any right to this life, this body, these hands… oh, his hands. They work so well for him. They manage the finest stitch, the tiniest slice; they're strong enough to hold his lover down, gentle enough to stroke his cheek. _I trained these hands. They're mine!_

But he's going to lose them, isn't he? Someone else—someone called Garak—is going to take them back.

At night he stares at them, at their outline in the dark. He can't see them. They could be any colour. They could certainly be grey. He fancies, sometimes, that he can't control them; that they're moving on their own, to his own neck, to Julian's—

He wakes, gasping, to Julian stroking his forehead, his neck, murmuring, "It's all right, love, it's all right…"

"The doors," he says, and doesn't know why he's said it.

"It's fine, love… go back to sleep. I'm here. You're safe."

He closes his eyes, feeling warm breath on his skin. _His_ skin. _You can't take it. It's mine. He's mine._

Inside his mind, there's only silence, always and only silence… but when he sleeps again, he dreams of grey hands, and dark doors, and the flutter of circling wings.


End file.
